


The Puppet Master's Apprentice

by LilTumbleweed



Category: Naruto
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Original Character(s), Romance, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25892947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilTumbleweed/pseuds/LilTumbleweed
Summary: On orders from the Kazekage himself, Shirasu must become a jounin in one month, or lose her ninja status for good. The fastest way to do that? Become a puppet master. Realizing her position, she e̶x̶t̶o̶r̶t̶s̶ enlists the help of Kankuro to achieve the seemingly impossible task. But the art of puppetry is as much about misdirection as any other ninja art, and Shirasu may discover more secrets—about both the puppets and herself—than she bargained for.
Relationships: Kankurou (Naruto)/Original Character(s), Kankurou (Naruto)/Original Female Character(s), Kankurou (Naruto)/Reader
Kudos: 10





	1. The First Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hi, welcome. So, I actually haven't written a Naruto fic in quite a long time, and this one has been sitting around collecting dust, so now I'm going to polish it up and finish it (hopefully). I don't publish my work very often. That's kind of why I chose the name LilTumbleweed. 'Cuz there was nothing but tumbleweeds here HAHAHAHA. Anyway, I probably won't be updating regularly, but I'll try to get a chapter out at least once a week. Hope you enjoy the story!

Kankuro sighed miserably as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Man, this is why I can’t stand kids…”

I frowned, crossing my arms over my chest in indignance. “I’m not a kid…” I muttered, eyeing him from under my fringe with a frown. “I’m already—”

“Eighteen years old, I know.” He crouched down to glower a little closer. “Which is exactly why I’m in shock every time you pull a new stunt like this. When are you going to grow up, Shirasu?”

I crossed my arms a little tighter, averting my eyes. “It wasn’t my fault! It was—”

“If you say ‘Kaneki’ again, I’ll have you demoted to genin.”

I winced, tongue stayed by the threat of such unthinkable humiliation. I thumbed the contours of my bracelet, and the bells jingled silently, blunted by my nervous caress. “It’s not like I did it on purpose, though...”

“That hardly matters. The only reason my brother hasn’t dismissed you yet is that I vouched for you. But that isn’t going to protect you forever. He’s given you a month.”

“A… a month?” my chest hitched, as if gripped by the bony claw of death. “A month for _what_?”

Kankuro shut his eyes, sighing grimly. “One month to qualify as a jounin.”

My mouth dried out. I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “And… and if I don’t?”

“Then you get the pink slip.”

“B-but I’ve trained my entire life to be a ninja! He can’t—”

“He’s the Kazekage. He can, and honestly, any sane person would say he should have done it a long time ago.”

I jolted up, bracelet jingling loudly as I scrambled, and bowed over, pressing my forehead to the floor. “Please! You have to help me! How am I supposed to qualify for jounin in only a month!?”

Kankuro let out another long, wilting sigh. “The surest way...” I could feel his reluctant gaze on the back of my head, judging, critical, but perhaps a bit hopeful. He seemed to give up and clicked his tongue. “How should I know? It’s not my problem... Become a puppet master or something.”

I whipped up quickly, gazing wide-eyed at him. “Wha… You mean like you and… and my brother?”

He raised his eyebrows, then thumbed his chin pensively. “Well… Yeah, I guess, come to think of it. It’s a dying art. There are only three left in the entire village who still possess the skill, myself included. Gaara will think twice before he dismisses someone with such a rare and valuable ability. It’s not the worst idea.”

I gulped. “But...Doesn’t it take years of training to even approach the level of novice? Not even a born genius could become a master in a month!”

“Not with that attitude, anyway.”

I scoffed. “Look, I may be full of myself, but I’m not delusional.”

Kankuro rolled his eyes and stood up. He placed his hands on his hips. “Well, you asked me what the best way was, and I answered you. Whether you choose to follow my advice is up to you.”

I sat back, resting all of my weight on the balls of my feet, and ran my fingers through my hair agitatedly. Every spare cavity in my chest was filled with dread. I tried to think. What was I supposed to do? I would almost rather do literally anything else. But being a ninja… it meant everything to me. It was all I had left. If becoming a puppet master was the only way to hang onto that, then… I turned my eyes up to Kankuro, pleading.

He cocked an eyebrow. “What is it?”

I stood up and clasped my hands together prayerfully, eyes glistening with crocodile tears.

“No… you’re not thinking…”

My brows knitted as I leaned in, bottom lip quivering pathetically.

“No way. There’ll be twelve inches of snow in the desert before I… Shirasu, _no_.”

I sniffed a few times. “I’m begging you, sensei.”

“Wha—don’t call me—this is—there’s absolutely no way!” He began to back away from me fearfully, reaching for the wrapped puppet on his back. “Don’t come any closer!”

“But Kankuro-sensei, you’re the only one I can depend on!”

“B-back off, you brat…!”

I leapt forward and latched onto his lower leg, clinging like my life depended on it. “How can you abandon me in my time of need! Didn’t you promise to look after your senpai’s little sister!?”

Kankuro shook his leg vigorously, but I held fast until even he was panting from the exertion. “Alright, fine! Just get off!”

An hour later, we met up at a building in the less traversed parts of the complex surrounding the manor of the Kazekage. Kankuro had provided the address, but I was actually a little surprised that he showed up, half expecting him to flake out on me. Yet, he was already there waiting in the heat, and I caught him in the unsightly act of laboriously picking his nose. 

When, after nearly a minute, he finally noticed me watching with a horrified grimace, he was characteristically unbothered and got straight to business. He opened the door and I followed.

“Okay, listen up,” Kankuro began, picking delicately at the sweat on his brow in vain effort to avoid smudging his makeup. “If you’re going to become a puppet master, the first step is to learn as much as you can about the mechanisms that make them work.”

I looked up at Kankuro intently, skipping anxiously after him as we traversed the halls. “Uh… so how do I learn that?”

“On the job,” he answered solemnly as we came to a stop. He held out a rag and a little tub of beeswax and set them into my palms authoritatively.

I raised a brow. “Um… what are these for?”

He pushed open the door beside us and pointed into the darkened room with his thumb. “What do you think?” he said. “Get waxing.”

My mouth fell open. “Are you serious!? You said you were going to teach me, but this just seems like you’re trying to keep me busy with your chores so you don’t have to deal with either one!”

Kankuro raised an eyebrow. “Look, I don’t want you clumsily knocking around my puppets any more than you want to be here. Anyway, this is the way everyone starts out. You have to develop a bond with the puppets before you can be trusted with more advanced tasks.”

My mouth fell open in affront. “Bond??? With a _puppet_? What do you take me for! I’m not buying it!”

He rolled his eyes. “Listen. If you want me to teach you anything, this is where you start. Remember, I stuck my neck out for you, so I want you to succeed, too.”

I pursed my lips as I looked down at the rag and wax in my hands. How… degrading. 

“You swear you’re not just taking advantage of me?”

“Tch. You really think I'd do something so reprehensible?”

“I wouldn't put it past you.”

“Why you ungrateful little...!” 

Kankuro sucked in a breath, calming himself. He held his gloved hand up. “On my honor, ok? After all, your brother was my upperclassman. He’d haunt me from the afterlife if I didn’t look after you. Now go get ‘em, kid.”

With that, he stalked off dismissively, leaving me alone at the dark threshold of this eerie storeroom. Did he really have to invoke my brother's memory? Now I _really_ felt bad.

I gulped as I leaned into the room, looking around cautiously. Groping around the corner, I flipped on the light switch, only to be startled out of my sandals when I found myself face to face with a gruesome three-eyed puppet. I gulped and reached out to poke its long chin.

“ _Karasu_ …” I read aloud. “Don’t scare me like that, geez.”

I meandered a little further into the room, cautiously looking about at all the lifeless faces and dangling limbs. They were so creepy, I wondered how Kankuro could stand to spend so much time here. As I slowly turned about, I tried to count them, but there were just so many. Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? Impossible to say. 

As I marveled at Kankuro’s collection, I felt something bump into the back of my foot and I tripped. With a yelp, I fell backward and landed on my bum. What did I…

“Gyah!” I scooted away frantically, discarding my rag and wax in fright, to cower behind the curtain of limp wooden arms behind me. A dead body! What was _that_ doing here!?

As I peered a little closer, though, I realized it was actually just a really realistic puppet. Swallowing down my fear, I crept back out, hesitantly approaching it on all fours. It looked so real. I reached my hand out to brush soft vermillion locks out of its face. Lifeless brown eyes looked into the eternities between molecules, unblinking and cold. A pang welled up in my chest, as somehow, its face reminded me of one I’d seen many times before—

But no, I assured myself. The resemblance was only passing, and of course I had a tendency to see his face in everything, even all these years later. If I said anything to Kankuro about it, I’d surely get another lecture. My eyes trailed down to its chest, where I found a drum with red lettering gracefully printed on its surface.

“ _Sasori_ ,” I read. “Geez… I wonder what Kankuro uses _this_ for… Does it really have to look so human? In a way, this is the creepiest one in the room…”

Sighing, I scanned over its arms and hands. It was surprisingly battleworn, considering its unintimidating appearance, as though Kankuro used it quite a lot.

“Well, I guess since I’m already down here, you get to go first, ‘Sasori’…”

I plopped down cross-legged beside the eerie humanoid puppet and began to unscrew the cap on my wax pot.

“Honestly, I don’t see why we should be wasting time on waxing when I only have a month to become a puppet master. You’d think he’d skip all of the fluff and get right into it…” I mumbled as I coated my rag and positioned Sasori’s arm. With a sigh, I got to work polishing his bicep. At least it was satisfying to watch the dull, dry wood come alive with a fresh glow.

“’Bond with the puppets’, he says. How do you bond with a chunk of wood and joints? He’s obviously been ‘bonding’ with you guys a little _too much_ , huh, Sasori?”

I paused. Did I just ask it to respond? I wiped my brow, mentally chastising myself. I shouldn’t even be talking to it at all, but it was hard not to when it basically looked like a person. Kankuro said to become familiar with the puppets’ mechanisms, so I should really be…

Curiously, I trailed my fingers along the length of the puppet’s arm, to the palm. If Kankuro used it in battle, it must have some hidden weapo—

“ _Eek!_ ” I yelped, falling backward as a tube poked out of Sasori’s palm, sending a barrage of needles across the room, lodging with a series of _thunks_ into the faces and frames that hung from the adjacent rack. Most of them fell and clattered to the floor. My mouth hung open in distress.

“Oh, come _on_ , are you trying to get me in trouble, Sasori? Kankuro’s gonna _kill_ me when he sees this…” I huffed as I scooted back into place to resume waxing. “You better not have any other surprises in store for me, mister.”

As I went on with my work, I glared at the Sasori puppet, daring him to whip out any more weapons. I was ready to dismantle him if he tried anything else. My eyes narrowed. Soon, the tightness in my chest compelled me to admit aloud: “Ugh. These things give me the willies...”

Little by little, I worked my way across the arms, the face, and the torso, front and back. When I came to the lip of its pants, I grimaced. “There’s no way Kankuro expects me to do this part, right? …Who am I kidding, this was probably the first thing on his mind.” Slowly I began to tug the pants off, pausing to look up at its dead, empty face.

“Forgive me for this,” I tightly whispered to no one in particular. Turning my gaze back down, my cheeks heated. “Forgive me mother, forgive me father, forgive me kami-sama…”

I proceeded to apologize profusely as I worked, uncomfortably massaging wax into the puppet’s crotch. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, oh god, I’m so sorry…”

But the puppet just lay there limply, as puppets do, completely oblivious to my distress, silent and cold. By the time I was done, I thought I was going to be sick. I quickly pulled its pants back up and turned away, sulking. 

“Calm down, Shirasu… it’s just a puppet after all, right? Ugh… But it looks so real. Thank god it didn’t have anything down there…” If it had, I would never forgive Kankuro. 

Taking a deep breath, I decided it would be best to avoid making eye contact with this puppet for a while, and I strode a distance away to take a turn with Kuroari. This one was much scarier-looking with its red horns and sharp-toothed grin, and yet, after what I had just endured with Sasori, it seemed far less threatening. It was almost relieving to look upon its frightful countenance. With a grunt, I hoisted it off of the wall and set it down on the floor, getting to work.

“This one has a lot more real estate to cover…” I noted. “Say, Kuroari, what’s with that creepy guy over there, anyway? What does Kankuro want with such a thing? You seem much more useful…”

I hummed as I mulled it over. “Well, I guess if a puppet looks human, it would work better as a decoy… But in battle, wouldn’t it be a little less versatile? I guess this is probably the kind of thing Kankuro wanted me to think about while I’m here… But it would be a lot faster if he’d just tell me everything himself. Jerk.”

To my surprise, as I worked, I found my gaze drifting back over to the motionless lump that was Sasori’s freshly polished body. I gulped. Why was I looking over there again, anyway?

I shifted my weight on my feet anxiously. Then, with a grunt, I hoisted Kuroari up and lugged him over to Sasori. I set him on the floor with a _thump_ and plopped down. 

“You look kind of lonely over here, Sasori, so Kuroari and I should probably keep you company, huh?” I chuckled awkwardly. What the hell was I doing? I just got here and I was already setting up puppet playdates. I was officially losing it. When would I be whipping out the tiny plastic tea cups? Should I invite Karasu? And would you like one sugar or two, Sasori?

I sank down a little bit, embarrassed at my own absurdity. I tried to focus on waxing instead. The sooner I got out of here, the more of my sanity I could salvage.

Thus, little by little, I worked my way through the collection, each time carrying the next puppet over and plopping it down beside Sasori, making one-sided observations about each new interviewee, asking questions into the void, laughing at my own jokes, and feeling ashamed of myself. If I was being honest, this was probably the most social I had ever been in my life. Real people were just… not this easy to talk at. 

Now, with the afternoon sun beaming in through the little round workshop windows, I let out a deep breath and wiped my brow. Eventually, wiping in tiny circles becomes quite an exhausting exercise, though you might never guess it. 

“Wow, you’ve done a lot.”

I yelped, flying six feet into the air, my soul leaping out of my body for a split second as I whirled around, coming face to face with Kankuro. He smirked, amused at my fright.

“D-don’t sneak up on me, damn it!” My heart was pounding. I thought one of the puppets had really come to life!

“I’m a ninja, it’s kind of my job to sneak up on people,” he replied.

I sent him a resentful glare as I sat back down, dusting myself off.

Kankuro plopped down on a nearby chair. “Here, I brought you some lunch.”

He tossed a wrapped box into my arms and I snatched it out of the air, eyebrows raised. “Wow. That’s unusually thoughtful of you.”

He pouted. “In light of how much you’ve done this morning, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. I honestly thought you were just going to slack off, so this makes us even.”

I sent him a glare, thoroughly offended. “How come you get to decide what makes us even?” I muttered, aggressively unwrapping my lunch.

“So, what do you think so far?” he asked, unwrapping his own bento.

“About?”

“The puppets, obviously.”

“Well, they’re creepy.”

“That’s it? You’ve been working on them all morning and that’s the only observation you’ve made?”

“They’re also really dangerous. This one already made two attempts on my life,” I replied, gesturing at the innocently limp Sasori.

“Oh, so you’ve met Sasori… That explains the needle holes in the door...”

I raised my eyebrows. Met? Did he really have to say it like that? You don’t meet puppets, you meet _people_ , Kankuro.

“He’s a bit mischievous compared to the others. You have to watch your back around him.”

I edged away from him uncomfortably. “I mean… he _is_ just a puppet, right?”

Kankuro gave a chuckle that set my hairs on end. “There’s no such thing,” he eerily replied. “Some of these puppets are hundreds of years old, you know. They’ve all seen countless battles and most of them have watched more than one master pass away. But this Sasori puppet is special, even among the likes of them.”

I gulped. “S-special how?”

Kankuro calmly took a bite of his food and chewed it with dignity before swallowing. The wait only made my nerves bunch tighter.

“You see, before the last great war, even before you or I were born, there was a legendary puppet master called Akasuna no Sasori.”

My eyes grew wide. “I’ve heard of him. Wasn’t he the one who kidnapped Gaara a few years ago?”

Kankuro nodded. “He was also responsible for the disappearance of the Sandaime Kazekage, and he was the one who made most of the puppets in this room. I faced him in battle more than once. He was every bit as formidable as the stories claimed.”

My mouth formed into an ‘o’. “Then how did you live to tell the story? No offense, but there’s no way _you_ could face off against someone who was strong enough to defeat _two_ Kazekages.”

Kankuro pouted again. “I’ll let that slide, since the rest of this story is going to be punishment enough…”

My eyebrows shot up. “Now I’m not sure I want to hear it!”

“Too bad!” He took off his hat and set it down, leaning in seriously, his arms crossed. “So, this puppet…”

I gulped. “Y-yeah?”

“This puppet was Akasuna no Sasori’s greatest masterpiece.”

“ _This_ puppet was?” Disbelief laced my words as I took a quick glance at the wimpy-looking thing.

He nodded. “You see, after he kidnapped the Third Kazekage, Sasori roamed the land in search of powerful shinobi with unique abilities. He fought them and, once defeated, he would take their bodies and _turn them into puppets_.”

My mouth fell open. My face turned white. “Y-you’re kidding, right? That sounds like a ghost story.”

“I’m not kidding. But that wasn’t even all. Akasuna no Sasori took it even further than that. He wasn’t satisfied with merely preserving the bodies of other powerful ninjas. He became obsessed with the lasting beauty of art and wished to make himself immortal… so, piece by piece, he turned his _own_ body into a puppet and became a living work of art.”

“C-cut it out already! There’s no way that’s even possible!”

“But it is. And Sasori was the only person in the world skilled enough to do it. Once, not so long ago, it was right here in this very puppet, in that very drum in his chest, that the still-living heart of Akasuna no Sasori beat.”

My jaw could not have slackened any further if I detached it. “Y-you’re just yanking my chain, right?”

“Not at all. In fact, I was almost killed by this puppet when I first met Akasuna no Sasori. The person who saved my life was also partly responsible for his defeat in the Land of Rivers a few days later.”

As I glanced at the puppet, my heart pounded. I couldn’t believe I’d spent the entire day sitting right beside something so scary, even casually conversing with it. What if it was haunted!? I gulped.

“S-so who was it that defeated him, anyway?”

Kankuro looked over at the puppet, an air of nostalgia glazing his eyes. “It was the Grand Elder Chiyo and a kunoichi from the Hidden Leaf who finally did him in.”

“No kidding? Didn’t your sister marry someone from the Hidden Leaf?”

Suddenly, his expression turned sour. I should have known that was a sore spot, considering. “Hmph. Don’t remind me. Well, anyway, I’ll be back again later. I expect you to be completely finished by five. And I’m taking the cost of that door out of your paycheck.”

“Wh—hey, wait! You can’t do that! M-make Sasori pay for it!”

“Hah!” With that, he vanished out the door in a hurry, leaving me once again completely alone with the puppets. I turned to Sasori, gulping. 

“Is that true, Sasori? Were you really a ruthless lunatic who turned people into puppets? How scary…”

His head fell forward slightly and I yelped, practically zipping across the entire room, abandoning my bento to its fate. 

“O-oh…” I mumbled after a moment’s contemplation. “Hah… he just shifted slightly. Silly me…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what do you think? I thought it was pretty interesting, but I might be biased. Let me know if you liked it—I'm the type of person who needs a lot of validation and peer pressure to keep me going (hahaha, no but seriously). But if you didn't like it, I don't mind hearing your notes, either. Next chapter coming soon. Thanks!
> 
> P.S. I'm looking for a beta reader for proofreading and general feedback. If you're interested, please let me know!


	2. Like a Sphincter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first half of this story is already written, so these chapters will be ready to go pretty frequently. But later ones might come slower. I did a lot of speculating on how one learns kugutsu no jutsu for this story. I haven't watched or read much of Boruto, so I dunno if they went into it more after Naruto ended. (It's not that I think Boruto is bad or anything, I just haven't felt super motivated to look into it). Anyway, please forgive me if I'm wrong about some things, and keep in mind that I started writing this story several years back. <3

“I’m amazed that you’re on time,” Kankuro said as he stepped into the workshop, setting a heavy pack down on the floor beside his work bench. 

“You, on the other hand, are _late_ ,” I snapped, crossing my arms irritably.

“I was in a council meeting. If you were waiting a long time, it’s not my fault you have nothing better to do.”

I tried not to grind my teeth too hard. “So, what are we doing today, then, _sensei_?”

He rolled his eyes at my tone. “Today? Well, the joints need oiling…”

“Kankuro!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Sheesh. Kids these days have no sense of humor.”

“You know, You’re really not that much older than me. It’s annoying to be called a kid by someone who’s technically in the same age group.”

“We are _not_ in the same age group.”

“When I’m 90 and you’re 98, will we be in the same age group then?”

“Shut your cake hole. We’re not in the same age group _now_ , and you’re definitely going to get yourself killed before you make it to 90.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, and he made a spooky face in turn, wiggling his fingers at either side of his head. For someone supposedly so much older and more mature, he sure acted like a brat.

I glared. He glared.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he said, “today I’m going to teach you how to form chakra strings.”

My expression softened with delight. “Really!?”

“Yes.”

“So, I’ll actually be able to start using puppets!?”

“Yeah, probably not.”

My smile fell to the floor, shattered like so much glass. “Are you serious? How much longerrrr…”

Kankuro huffed. “God, you’re such a brat. You know, when I first learned this technique, it took me an entire year just to get the shape transformation right. It takes a lot of focus and skill, qualities which you sorely lack.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, crossing my arms. “We’ll see what you say when I master it in one day!”

Kankuro burst out laughing. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, Shirasu. Even granting you the benefit of age and experience and the advantage of a highly skilled instructor, if you practice diligently, you’re looking at _at least_ two weeks. I’m being generous here. This assumes you have _any_ innate talent at all.”

“Whatever, just tell me what to do already!”

“Alright, alright. Here, take this.”

To my surprise, Kankuro tossed a small wooden box at me and I had barely enough time to scramble to attention and catch it. I looked down at it in befuddlement.

“That will be your training toolkit from now on,” he explained as I opened it curiously. 

Inside were ten small spools of narrow cable about the width of worsted yarn, and ten wooden balls about the diameter of a coin. I curled a brow and plucked one of the balls out, looking at it doubtfully. “What the heck am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

Kankuro smirked and crossed his arms. “Consider this an advanced level of standard chakra control training.”

“Huh? You mean like climbing trees and walking on water?”

“Right. Except this is going to teach you the shape transformation necessary to form chakra strings and manipulate objects.”

“Uh…” And how was a cable and some balls supposed to do that? I raised a brow expectantly.

Kankuro frowned at my skepticism. He reached over and plucked five of the balls out of the kit into his palm. He held one of them up between his thumb and forefinger to show me. I watched, cocking my head in wonder. He closed his hand, and when he opened it again, to my astonishment, on each of his fingers was a ball, firmly stuck.

“They’re… sticky?”

Kankuro sent me a withering look. “No, idiot. I’m using my chakra to hold them in place. It’s exactly the same concept as getting your feet to stick to a tree, but instead you use your fingertips.”

“Oh… I knew that.”

“Uh-huh.” He huffed. “Anyway, this part of the training shouldn’t be too awfully hard for you, since you’re already a chuunin. Go ahead and try it.”

I turned my attention to the solitary ball still cradled in my palm and gulped. I had long since completed basic chakra control training, and despite my numerous other shortcomings, it had always been one of my strong suits. Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake my nerves. If I couldn’t do this simple thing, I would feel like such an idiot. But I had to try.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and brought my index finger over to the little thing. Carefully, I focused my chakra into the tip of my finger and set it down on the smooth wooden surface. When I lifted my finger away, to my immense relief, the ball went with it, firmly attached to the tip of my finger. I let out a huge sigh.

“Not bad,” Kankuro praised. “When I first did this training, it took me a week and a half to get that far. Granted, I was still an academy student back then. With that out of the way, we can move on to the real fun.”

I felt my stomach turn a little bit when he said that, but I kept it to myself. He dropped the five balls from his hand back into the box and drew out a spool of cable, rolling out a little bit of it for me to see.

“Think of this hollow cable as a guide. It’s going to help you learn to mold your chakra into the narrow shapes required for puppetry. Since you’re already able to focus your chakra into your fingers, now you have to learn how to extend it without allowing it to dissipate.”

He held the end of the cable to the tip of his finger, attaching it soundly, and pulled back, drawing out a good two feet from the spool. Then, I watched in wonder as the cable began to wobble to and fro, forming waves. Then, Kankuro took his hand out from under the spool, which stayed in its place, hovering mid-air, slowly uncoiling. I let out an impressed whistle.

“Your first hurdle is going to be getting your chakra into the hollow of this cable. It’s made of a special material that should keep your chakra inside, but that will only help you a little bit.”

I watched as he re-wound the cable, using nothing but the chakra at the end of his finger. He plopped it down in my hand. “You try it.”

Compliantly, I set the tip of my finger against the end of the cable and attached it. My brows furrowed in concentration as I tried to push my chakra out into the cable’s hollow. And at last, the spool budged in my palm. I let out a gasp.

“Did you see that!? It moved!”

Kankuro cleared his throat. “Each spool is thirty meters,” he explained. “When you can force enough chakra through to completely unwind the spools with all ten fingers at once, we can move on to the next step.”

I was almost too caught up in the excitement of having moved something with my chakra alone to hear him, but when I finally registered his words, my face fell.

“ _Thirty meters!?_ ” I cried. “I can barely even do two inches!”

Kankuro crossed his arms, frowning down at me. “If you can’t even do thirty meters with the guide, you’ll never be able to do fifteen without, and that’s the bare minimum if you want your skills to be useful in battle.”

I gulped. “Well, how long is this supposed to take?” I asked in a whimper.

“Ordinarily, it takes at least two months, but you’re going to have to do it in four days.”

My jaw dropped. “Are you _serious_? There’s no way I can do that!”

Kankuro lifted his hands and shrugged. “It’s either that or give up. This is probably your only hope at becoming a jounin. You have no special skills of your own, and a troublemaking delinquent like you isn’t going to squeeze by on charm alone.”

Anguish weighed my features down as I gazed at the spool of cable in my hands. Kankuro stood in expectant silence, his eyes shut impatiently. I squeezed the spool a little tighter.

“Say, Kankuro…”

“…Hmm?” He opened one eye curiously.

“When my brother did this training, how long did it take him?”

Kankuro’s brows shot up, taken aback. Normally when I asked about my brother, he would either deflect or instantly start lecturing me, but this time he grew solemn. “Ah… Kazuhiko… Well… there’s no use comparing yourself to a genius like him. A person with talent like _that_ is only born once in a hundred years.”

“Well, yeah…” I replied, turning my eyes down. “I know I’ll never be as amazing as he was… I just… I mean, I don’t really know much about him…”

His eyes softened and he passed a hand through his choppy brown locks. A sigh escaped his lips. “That guy… he completely mastered shape transformation in just two days.”

I could feel a lump forming in my throat and swallowed it down with difficulty. I remembered watching Kazuhiko from a distance as we were growing up. By the time I was old enough to enter the academy, he was already a chuunin. Our parents had both been gone since long before then, and it was he who single-handedly earned the money to keep me fed and clothed. Back then, I resented him for never being home to spend time with me. But now… I just missed him

Kankuro set his hand on my shoulder, startling me out of my reverie. To my surprise he was smiling. “You may not be your brother, but if anyone can do this, it’s you. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I didn’t think it was possible.”

A violent heat rose to my cheeks and I stumbled away from him. “Um… Um…! I-I better start training, then!”

With that, I flew out of the room, clutching the box close, unsure of where I was even going as I struggled to fight down the pounding in my chest.

  
  


“…Tch.” 

I glared down at the spool resting on the stone floor in front of me and wobbling haphazardly on its side. It had been six hours of me sitting here, and still I could barely get more than a few inches to unwind. I turned my head to the left, scowling at the Sasori puppet limply sprawled against the wall.

“I bet you learned it in two days, too.” I frowned, and then let out an exasperated sigh. “Why is everyone except me so talented?”

The puppet sat there, brown eyes staring into nothing, completely unresponsive.

“You’re no help, you know.”

I turned away in a huff. But then a stupid idea drifted into my head and my eyes floated down to his slender wooden hand, laying limp against the floor. I reached out with my index finger, poking the tip of his curiously. When I lifted, his hand followed after mine, dangling lifelessly.

I gave a chuckle, easily amused, and went on pulling his hand up and down and all around, as if conducting an imaginary orchestra. The rest of his fingers flopped and clacked against each other, and so I took a second to attach those to the rest of my fingers as well. I grinned childishly.

“High five?” I asked.

And then, giddy, I sent a small burst of chakra into my palm, pushing the wooden appendage away momentarily, only to suck it right back in. Our hands met with a pop. I let out a series of giggles. But soon enough, my joy faded into silence. I pulled my knees against my chest, sighing into them glumly.

“Ah, Sasori... Who am I kidding? There’s no way I can do this in a month. I was never cut out to be a ninja in the first place. The only reason I did it was because I wanted to be where my brother was. But now he’s gone, and it feels like there’s just no point anymore. I wish… I wish I could see him one more time.”

I turned my head to look into the puppet’s face, sniffing to fight back the tears that formed in the corners of my eyes. “I can’t help but notice it… He looked a little bit like you, you know. His eyes were so gentle, but so filled with layers of sadness, and loneliness. And when he died, they were just like yours, hollow and cold. But no matter how many hours passed sobbing over his casket, it always seemed like he was looking at something I couldn’t see. It looked almost like… like he regretted something…” My eyes glazed over as I thought back on it. I was so angry at him, back then, for dying like that and leaving me all alone in the world. 

I wiped my eyes. “What should I do? Would it hurt to do my best just for one more month? Or should I give up now and just go sell kebabs or something? I wonder… if Kankuro would be disappointed in me…”

I sighed, dismissing those thoughts from my mind. I couldn’t give up now. How could I throw away all of those years of training? It seemed ridiculous when I thought back on all the time I’d already invested. I wasn’t going to let fate make that choice for me, at any rate. I quickly went back to work on my training.

  
  


Three days passed in a dim haze of winding and unwinding cables. Once in a while, Kankuro would appear before me, force me to take a break, and ensure that I was receiving nutrients. Despite his attitude, he had been pretty responsible in that regard, and although I appreciated the food, I found myself glaring at him resentfully as we ate in silence.

He lifted his gaze to mine, one eyebrow raised in faint curiosity. “What?” he asked through a mouthful of rice.

My eyes narrowed. “Isn’t a sensei supposed to, I dunno, supervise his pupil’s training and, like, offer advice and guidance or something?”

His brows furrowed, and he swallowed his food in one gulp. “What advice am I supposed to give you? It’s simple—just push your chakra through the damn cable. Honestly, I don’t see why you’re having so much trouble with it.”

My fingers tightened around my chopsticks so tightly that one of them snapped. I pointed them at him aggressively. “Even you said that this training would take two months for a normal person! If you think I can do it in four days, then the least you could do is give me a strategy!”

He blinked and then rolled his eyes. “How far have you gotten?”

“Ten feet.”

“Wow, with all ten fingers? That’s actually pretty impressive.”

I pouted. “With _one_ finger.”

He huffed and crossed his arms. “Seriously, that’s _all_?”

I managed to keep it contained, but inside, I was fuming. “What do you expect when you leave me to it, without any help or motivation at all? If you try to tell me that that was how _you_ learned, then it’s no wonder it took you an entire year!”

He let out a sigh. “Alright, fine.” He set his food aside. “Show me your progress.”

Glaring at him skeptically, I reached over and retrieved a spool. I set it down, attached the end to my finger, took a deep breath, and pushed my chakra out. The spool began to unwind into the room, rapidly at first, and then slower until it came to a stop about ten feet away.

Kankuro watched this and then leaned over the cable pensively. His expression was actually pretty serious, to his credit, but I still had my doubts.

“Hmm…”

I leaned over expectantly.

“Well, here’s what I’m seeing: you’re shooting your chakra out like a bullet instead of trying to concentrate it into an even, steady stream. You can get some distance out of that, sure, but eventually it loses momentum and dissipates.”

My brows shot up in surprise. He was… right. My cheeks heated as I supposed that my hastiness had once again led me to miss the entire point of my training. Well, at least he wasn’t rubbing it in my face for once. I swallowed the sudden dryness in my mouth, averting my eyes. “Okay… so, how do I form it into an ‘even, steady stream’, then?”

Kankuro cleared his throat, and reclined a bit on his palms. “Well… imagine the tenketsu at the end of your finger is a sphincter—”

“ _No thank you!_ ” I barked.

Kankuro huffed. “Look, the bottom line is that you have to tighten up and push slowly, or you’re just going to get sloppy projectiles and make a mess, alright?”

“Oh my god I hate you.”

I didn’t miss the childish smirk playing on his lips, soon retracted and tucked away. He coughed awkwardly. “Why don’t you keep that in mind and try it again? Tell me you hate me after you see how well it works.”

With a pout, I wound the spool back up and started again, this time repeating the mantra, slow and steady, nice and tight. Little by little the spool unwound. Two feet, four feet, eight feet, and clear past the ten feet mark. I watched it unravelling before my eyes with flush-faced wonder, until at last it was completely unwound, coiling around Kankuro’s workshop in a series of big hoops.

I turned my gaze to Kankuro who was beaming smugly. “Toldya.”

I sent him a bitter glare and threw my fist up. “If you had been here to watch my training, you could have explained that two days ago!”

“Eh? What are you blaming _me_ for? You should have been able to figure that out on your own. Critical thinking is an essential skill for a ninja, you know.”

I sent him a withering look.

“Hmph. Well, don’t get too excited,” he said, hoisting himself up with a grunt and dusting his pants off. “You still have a ways to go, you know. Now you’ve got to do it with all ten fingers—and, by the way, you should really figure out how to wind them back up without using your hands. So wasteful.”

I watched speechlessly as he gathered up his things, put his cowl on, and started for the door. Only too late did I realize he was going to abandon me again.

“K-Kankuro, wai—”

The door shut soundly behind him and I dropped my head in despair. Had he learned nothing from this? Oh well. Back to the grind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, whatcha think? Is this bad beans, or good gravy? I dunno, but I'm having fun revisiting a fic that I haven't touched in a long time. I'm still looking for a beta reader if anyone's interested!


	3. Older Siblings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this one from my phone, so I apologize if there are any weird mistakes. I promise I will fix them soon. <3 I just haven't been able to get to my computer lately, but I wanted to post this, so I'm improvising a bit lol. Hope you enjoy it!

It was about seven in the morning when I opened my door with a yawn to find Kankuro standing in the porch with a bag of takeout pancakes and a couple of drinks. Unlike me, having only just rolled out of bed to investigate a piercing knock at the door, he looked like he had already been up for a few hours and seemed quite lively. I looked around at the mostly empty street, and at the faintly purple skyline. The sun had barely even come up!

I glared, stepping aside to let him in. Once he was beyond the threshold, I threw the door closed.

“What the heck are you doing here so early!” I barked as he coolly set to work arranging the food on my table.

“Making sure you eat breakfast,” he replied.

I squeezed my fists shut and waved my arms indignantly. “I can cook, you know!”

He shrugged. “Is it so bad to pop in and check on you once in a while?”

“At the ass-crack of dawn? Yes!”

“What are you talking about? It’s already past seven. Shouldn’t a ninja be early to rise?”

I scowled. “The general consensus is that ninjas are creatures of the night. In accordance with that image, it happens I was up until three in the morning training. So, thanks for ruining my well-deserved sleep.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever, you can take a nap later. There’s a cot in the workshop.”

As he laid out the breakfast, glistening with syrupy goodness, I felt moderately more inclined to forgive him. Kankuro always had good taste in food. I sat down at the table and began to dig in unabashedly.

“Hmph! How about that. You’ll yell at me one second and eat my food the next. You’re one shameless kid.”

“Confider vif my merfiful pardon,” I said through a mouthful of pancake.

Unexpectedly, Kankuro laughed, shielding a little snort behind his hand, and my eyes grew wide at the sight. He didn’t laugh much. Condescending chuckles, sure, but this was something special. I also noticed, to my surprise, that he hadn’t put his face paint on yet, and all of his features were visible. He had a surprisingly earnest face. I cast my eyes down, determined to focus on stuffing more pancake down my throat.

Wait. I attempted to think about this rationally. Seven in the morning? No face paint? Delivering breakfast to my door? These were not normal behaviors for Kankuro. Slowly, I turned my eyes up to him, narrowing with suspicion. What was his game?

“Huh? What’s with that look all of a sudden?”

“You left home in a hurry this morning,” I observed.

That was all it took to make him start sweating. “Uh… w-what do you mean?”

“You came here, so you weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere… that means you were avoiding something.”

His sweating intensified. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What on earth could the mighty Kankuro be so keen to avoid? I wonder…”

He swallowed visibly.

“Ah. It can only be one thing.”

“O-one thing?”

I sent him a mischievous grin. He seemed to be looking around for an escape. Smugly, I kicked back in my chair.

“So, when did Temari arrive?”

Kankuro let out a huge sigh, dropping his head in shame. He ran his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. “She hasn’t yet. She’s expected to get here at ten.”

I hummed curiously. He looked unusually troubled, even considering the circumstances. “Why the big hurry then?”

Kankuro’s cheeks turned an uncharacteristic shade of pink. “Well… the council was a bit preemptive in their harassment.”

“You mean to tell me that old bat Hazuru was at your door before seven in the morning to guilt you about—”

“Yes. God damn her.”

“Well, I guess they kinda have a good point. And you are the older brother, so it’s only natural that—”

“Not you, too. I only came here because your snark seemed the more palatable option.”

“Well, I mean, you could have just gone for a walk or something. You didn’t have to come here. At seven in the goddamn morning.”

He seemed to have nothing to say to that and proceeded to stuff his mouth with sausage and egg.

I scoffed in affront. That was my tactic, dang it!

“Besides that, don’t you, I dunno, want to see your sister? It’s been years, after all. I mean, you have a nephew you’ve never even met!”

He glared at me through a massive mouthful, which he somehow managed to swallow down in one gulp. “You never really spent a whole lot of time around her,” he said. “You have no idea what she’s like.”

I sent him a skeptical look. “Get real. Gaara used to murder people for fun and you spend just about every day with him. How bad can Temari be?”

Kankuro took in a preparatory breath and made an explanatory gesture, but nothing came out. He sighed. “Do you know what a ‘nag’ is?”

I raised a brow. “Well, whatever. If you want to hide out here, I don’t have a problem with that—provided that you help me with my training in exchange.”

He pouted and looked away. “I guess that’s fair…”

“And my dishes.”

“Now wait just a minute, are you forgetting that I bought you breakfast, too??”

“Oh, well, I guess I’ll just go and let the council know where you—”

“Fine, I’ll do your stinking dishes.”

I grinned evilly. “And my laundry.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Darn. Hey, it was worth a shot.”

Kankuro stood up, having finished his breakfast in vain effort to stall. He looked around my house, blinking like someone who had just walked out into a sunny street. 

“This place sure hasn’t changed much,” he remarked.

I stood up and yawned. “Did you think I would toss out perfectly good furniture? Anyway, it’s my brother’s place, not mine. It’d feel weird messing with his stuff.”

“Tch.” Kankuro cast a reproachful look on me, and I braced myself for a lecture. “You really think Kazuhiko would have felt that way about it?”

I rolled my eyes, cheeks heating. “It’s not about that…”

Kankuro huffed. “What is it, then?”

I grumbled reluctantly, fiddling with the sleeve of my nightshirt. “It’s just… I want things to stay the way they were when he was alive.”

Kankuro’s expression softened with regret. He placed a hand on my shoulder and when I met his gaze, I was surprised to find a smile on his lips. “I think I’ll go see Temari after all,” he said.

I scowled at him. “For real? Are you just trying to get out of training me again!?”

His eyes drifted off to the side. “A little bit, but I was going to invite you to tag along, too.”

I crossed my arms indignantly. “Are you nuts? I’m not going to intrude on a family reunion. Besides, I’m already behind enough on my training as it is!”

“Oh really? I thought you said you were up until 3 AM.”

“Well… Uh… Ehehehe…”

Rolling his eyes and waving dismissively, Kankuro started off toward the dining table, gathering up the trash. “It’s not that weird to introduce your students to your family. Anyway, go get dressed. I’ll take care of this.”

On the way to the Kazekage’s mansion, Kankuro regaled me with tales of his childhood with Temari, who was evidently a remorseless bully, nothing at all like my pure and heroic image of an older sibling. He told me how she would constantly break his toys, make fun of his weight, tell lies about him and get him in trouble. As they got older, she matured a bit, especially when it became necessary to look after Gaara, but her attitude remained rotten.

When we got there at last, I found myself feeling more nervous about meeting Temari than I had about meeting the Kazekage. My knees were even shaking and I found myself frozen at the doorway. Kankuro had to guide me in, or I wouldn’t have moved an inch.

“Hey, I know I said a lot of bad things, but she’s not going to eat you alive, you know,” he consoled. “In fact, she’ll probably like you. She likes spunky kids.”

I didn’t feel very spunky right now.

Before I could manage a shaky reply, a puny child, no older than four, came hurtling out of the next hallway and crashed right into me, toppling me like the wobbly Jenga tower that I was. I let out a startled cry.

Slowly, the little boy stood back up, massaging his forehead with a groan.

“Aw geez, are you okay, kid?” I asked, kneeling in a hurry to examine him. I hissed at the sight of the bruise forming on his forehead. Tears brimmed at the corners of his little green eyes as he adjusted his ponytail, but he pouted resolutely, determined to stay cool.

“I’m fine. You’re not hurt are you, sis?”

My brows shot up, stunned at how clearly he spoke despite his age. “Yeah, don’t you worry about--”

“SHIKADAI!”

The boy winced dramatically at the bark from down the hall, and to my surprise, Kankuro winced, too. I turned my gaze up and found none other than the dreaded Temari storming toward us like a war machine. I paled a few shades and tried to hide behind Kankuro, but luckily her eyes were glued to the little boy.

“What have I told you about running indoors?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

The little boy, Shikadai, gulped. He looked ready to grovel. But then, he looked at me, took a deep breath, and turned bravely toward Temari. “C-come on, mom. I was just playing. No big deal…”

Temari frowned so deeply that her face looked like it would tear itself off of her skull with rage. But her eyes found Kankuro and me, and they quickly filled with surprise. Quietly she tucked her fury away… but by the sharp glare she sent Shikadai, he surely knew that he’d be paying for this later. “Go,” she said simply. And Shikadai skittered away like a frightened fawn.

Temari let out a sigh and crossed her arms. “Well, well, well. I wasn’t expecting you to greet me voluntarily. Didn’t they tell you I was coming?”

Kankuro pouted. “What kind of man wouldn’t come to greet his own sister after so long?”

I sent him a side-eye and he returned it with a silent ‘don’t you dare say a word’. I wasn’t planning on it.

Temari followed his gaze over to me and her frown morphed into a smile. “My, my, how unexpected. Shirasu-chan, right? You’ve certainly grown. I remember when you were just a toddler in pigtails, playing with dollies. Your brother was in my academy class, you know.”

I shrank a little. Kankuro could have warned me about that. “I-is that so? Well, I hope he was kind to you…”

Temari laughed uproariously. “Sure, sure. ‘Kind’ of a jerk. But we were kids then, and he grew up to be a wonderful guy, so I can't fault him. After all, he saved--”

Kankuro interrupted her with a loud clearing of the throat, and sent her a dark look. Temari quirked a brow at him, but quickly recovered. “Er… Anyway, may he rest in peace.”

“Oh, um, thank you.” I gave a slight, awkward bow.

“So what brings you here on this fine day?” Temari went on.

I sent Kankuro a glance, prompting Temari to raise a brow.

“I, um…”

“She’s just here to see Gaara. We bumped into each other on the way.”

Huh? Why didn’t he tell her he was training me? Didn’t he say he was going to introduce me as a student? I sent him a quizzical look, but brushed it off. “Uh, yeah. It’s just about a mission, nothing special.”

“I see.” Temari seemed unconvinced. “Well, in that case, why don’t we all go see him together? I owe that little brother of mine a piece of my mind. Kazekage or no, the least he could do is meet me at the door after I’ve come all this way.”

She started on her way towards the Kazekage’s office, and Kankuro and I had no choice but to follow.

When we came to the office, Temari rapped sharply on the large wooden door, and the sound reverberated through the halls. We heard Gaara’s voice utter a soft “Enter”, and Temari opened the door.

Once inside, we found Gaara absorbed in paperwork amid a mountain range of official orders and bureaucratic miscellanea. Temari crossed her arms and gave him the stink eye, but he seemed unaware if not indifferent. 

Kankuro cleared his throat, and Gaara raised one finger in request of a moment as he scribbled his signature on a sheet, followed by the loud stamping of his official seal. When he looked up, his eyes widened with surprise.

“Temari,” he said, voice almost straying above his usual monotone. “You’re here early.”

“Hmph. Is that the best you can muster after almost a year, when I came all this way just to see my darling little brother?”

Kankuro narrowed his eyes at her. “You have two of us, you know.”

“Please, we all know there’s nothing little about you. You should cut back on the pancakes, you know.”

I noticed as Kankuro stiffened. A sensitive area for him. I placed a hand awkwardly on his shoulder in the hopes of consoling him, but he didn’t seem to notice, his frown only deepening. 

Gaara cleared his throat and stood up in his dignified manner. “Of course, by ‘little brother’ we should take you to mean ‘The Kazekage’,” he supposed.

Temari smiled as he wound his way out from behind his desk and the piles of loose leaf, and they took hold of each other’s elbows in greeting. 

“Of course, work wasn’t absent from my mind,” she admitted. “I did bring presents for you both, though.”

Kankuro tsk’d. “You mean bribes from your new bosses?”

Temari sent him a glare. “My loyalty is always to the Hidden Sand. You know that.”

Kankuro scanned her face in skeptical silence as her brows knitted with annoyance. Eventually, though, he rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Hmph!”

At this moment, Gaara took notice of me, meekly cowering behind the hulking Kankuro.

“Shirasu,” he said, swiftly regaining the dignified aspect of the Kazekage. “I’ve heard your training has been progressing. I was surprised to learn that you decided to study the art of puppetry. It will be interesting to see how you grow as a ninja in the coming weeks. Please work hard and become a reliable shinobi. I’m sure Kazuhiko will be proud of you.”

Temari quirked a brow in confusion at this and looked questioningly at Kankuro, who averted his gaze awkwardly.

Meanwhile, blushing profusely at the unexpected encouragement, I cowered just slightly further. “Y-yes, Kazekage-sama! I’ll do my best!”

He smiled warmly in return. He was always much more menacing in my nightmares than in real life, and I almost sighed with relief.

“I’m glad to hear it. You’re dismissed.”

“H...Huh?” 

I looked at Kankuro. He had asked me to tag along for moral support, but obviously that wasn’t going to fly if our story was that I just came to see the Kazekage.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Head to the workshop and keep practicing. I’ll come and check on you later on.”

“O-okay.” I hurriedly skittered toward the door before I remembered my manners and turned to bow. “Th-thank you again! And also, it was an honor to meet you, Temari-sama!”

Temari lifted a hand awkwardly in farewell, perhaps, by her wide-eyed expression, stunned to be addressed so respectfully, and I practically leapt out the door, feeling flustered and stupid.

Two of the three sand siblings sat upon a wooden picnic table outside of a curry restaurant, frowning and in utter silence. The air was thick with tension, which might have been alleviated if the third sibling had been able to escape his duties as Kazekage for lunch, but alas.

Kankuro was quite happy to dig in for something to do while he tried to ignore his sister’s ever-mysterious and mounting ire, while Temari could only pick at her food, so distracted by her annoyance with him. Why was he always such a bumbling moron? And couldn’t he work on his table manners? Or wear something other than that ugly black hat, for once? It was embarrassing to be seen with someone dressed like that. 

Finally, Temari couldn’t stand it. She slammed her chopsticks down, crossing her arms indignantly. Kankuro looked at her in confusion. Was she finally going to tell him what was on her mind? He doubted it.

“You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”

“Well, you’ve told me often enough, how could I forget?”

“Don’t be smart with me. I’m the older sibling, so you should show me some respect.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t dream of defying you, oh Honored Sister.”

“Tch. Look at you, sitting here carefree, stuffing your face like a glutton. Do you really need two plates of curry all to yourself? Have you no shame?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Kankuro!”

“Temari?”

“Ugh! What do you mean by not telling her? Are you out of your mind?”

All of the snark drained out of Kankuro’s face, and he looked his sister in the eye, expression grim. “...You mean Shirasu?”

“She deserves to know that her brother died a hero; that he gave his life to save you!”

“Tch.” Kankuro looked away. “Well… What good would it do? The guy is dead, and nothing I do can bring him back. All I can do is look after her in his place.”

“Oh, is that it? Please, as if it were anything so noble. To even go so far as teaching her puppetry? You said you would never take a pupil. This is obviously out of guilt. If you really want to be punished, you should tell her the truth and let her decide how you should grovel.”

Kankuro flinched, and grew more rigid with each word that flew from her mouth. She drove nails like a railroad worker. “It’s not--”

“Admit it!”

“Fine! I didn't tell her because I was ashamed! I didn't want to be the one at fault for her brother's death! Are you happy?”

Temari let out a lungful of air. She certainly didn’t look happy, turning her gaze down at her food to brood silently.

“I’m… just trying to do right by her in my own way. There’s no chance I could ever repay the debt that I owe, but I am trying.”

Temari took this in, regretting how she had spoken so callously. Softer this time, she said: “But you should tell her the truth. Even if it kills you, it would only be fair.”

Kankuro tsk’d and stood from his seat, gathering his second plate into a bento and setting a fistful of money on the table. 

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But there’s something else I have to do first. She can hate my guts afterward if she wants to.”

Temari watched her brother go, his back retreating solemnly into the distance. For a second, he looked almost as he did when they were kids, but then she reminded herself that he had grown into a man and sighed. She hoped he was making the right choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Next chapter coming soon. I know not a lot of people are interested in Kankuro, but I can't help being naturally intrigued by the less celebrated side characters in a story, and I've always really loved the design and dynamic of the sand siblings. So if nothing else, I hope this story converts a few people who otherwise would have thought nothing of Kankuro.


	4. The Jello Pit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just noticed that in previous chapters, some places where I originally had dividers just turned into an extra blank paragraph. ^_^; I'll have to go back and fix them, because honestly those scene transitions are probably hard to process without dividers, right? Now we're getting into the part of the story I had more fun with. Hopefully you will, too. Enjoy~ <3

“Kankuro-sensei~!”

“Augh! What the hell!?” Kankuro barked irritably as he tried to pry me off of his back where I had latched on with delight. “Get off, you’re throwing me off balance!”

“Guess what, guess what!”

“What, did you finally grow a second brain cell? I gotta say, it’s not showing.”

I was too delighted with myself to let his grouchiness get to me. I popped off of him and he turned around, frowning in displeasure, but nevertheless patiently awaiting my news with interest.

“I did it! Thirty meters with all ten fingers!”

His eyes grew wide, and his jaw dropped with astonishment.

“You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“Nope!”

Still gawping, he hurried about setting his things down on the nearest surfaces, and hung his hat on the coat peg. “This I gotta see to believe.”

Excitedly, I skipped over to the kit, where I had left it discarded near Sasori and Karasu, who had been keeping me company. Kankuro followed, trying his best to look cold and skeptical as I attached the spools carefully. But he was soon bewildered when, quick as a flash of lightning, all ten spools unfurled and splayed around the room like tentacles, around table legs, over and under puppet parts and work benches. He blinked disbelievingly as if waking from a dream.

“This is…” he breathed out as he surveyed the results. But he cleared his throat and quickly resumed his dignity. “Impressive,” he said. “It shows that you really have been working hard. You’re ready to move on to the next step, and just in time.”

My eyes glittered at his reaction. It was better than I hoped. I felt on top of the world.

“But first,” he said, “You should have something to eat. There’s a bento for you on the table.”

I rewound the spools in a snap, each one popping off of the tips of my fingers and clattering gracefully back into their places in the toolkit. I clapped my hands together with delight and hurried to investigate my meal. “Have I told you yet that you’re the coolest, sensei?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “But stop calling me that already.”

I was thrilled to find, cradled within the bento, the savory, mouth-watering aromas and vibrant hues of curry, thick and creamy, dotted with carrots, potatoes, and tender pork, all atop a mound of perfectly white rice. Could this day get any better?

“Yesssss~! Itadakimasu!” I dug in immediately, gobbling it down hungrily. Kankuro came to sit beside me, resting his elbows broodily on the table. He had grown strangely grim in his own thoughts as he stared off blankly into the workshop.

I followed his gaze. “Oh yeah. I cleaned up a bit while I was waiting for you. Aren’t I a model student?”

That seemed to bring him back to reality and he straightened up, sending me a perplexed look. He seemed to still be processing what I said. “Now I’m _ really _ in shock. Who are you and what have you done with Shirasu?”

I couldn’t help but grin stupidly as I let out a ‘ _ pfft _ ’. “I’m not letting any imposters take credit for this one. You know, I had my doubts, but maybe there really is hope.” I dropped my gaze down to my food, picking at it absently, in the hopes of hiding the redness spreading across my cheeks. “I should thank you for talking me into this and helping me so much, even though you really didn’t have to… I never thought about it before, but you’ve always been taking care of me, even though I’ve been an ungrateful brat all this time. And… thanks to you, because I was able to do this… I feel like I’ve somehow gotten closer to my brother.”

Kankuro’s features softened, but his expression was unreadable. Soon, though, he overcame this uncharacteristic speechlessness and scoffed. “What are you talking about? You want to get close to the dead, just go take a long walk in the desert.”

I pouted. “Hey, come on, I’m trying to be earnest and have a bonding moment here.”

“Quit it, it’s gross.”

I squinted, poked my tongue out at him, and resumed stuffing my face. “You’re shuch a shourpussh!” I declared through a full mouth.

~~~

When I finished eating, Kankuro took my empty bento and tossed it, already getting right down to business as he retrieved the kit and a seemingly very hefty bag, hoisted over his shoulder with ease. I watched him curiously.

“Alright. We don’t have any time to waste, so now that you have a basic feel for the shape transformation, you should know that that was the easy part. Things are going to get a lot less forgiving from here on out.”

I pursed my lips. “Well, I guess I’m not surprised…”

He held the toolkit out to me and I took it. “This room won’t be suitable for the next part of your training,” he said.

“It won’t?”

“I just said so.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m tired of you stinking up my workshop. Now come on.”

I pouted, but scampered quickly to keep pace with him. “Hey! Where are we going?”

“The roof,” he replied cryptically, turning into a stairwell at the end of the hall.

“Hah? What for? You know, I don’t really have the complexion for soaking up the sun. Or you might say I soak up too much.”

“Then buy some sunscreen,” he dismissed.

Soon, we came to the roof, where I found, to my wide-eyed astonishment, an elaborate obstacle course had been set up. I raised my brows and let out an impressed whistle. 

Kankuro cleared his throat. “Normally a course like this would be reserved for an apprentice, but in your case, given the time constraints, I’ve decided to move things up a bit.”

“Hey… I thought I already  _ was  _ an apprentice.”

“Psh. Please. You’re still a novice. Apprentice is a title that has to be  _ earned _ .”

“Well if I’m already doing apprentice-level training, doesn’t that count?”

“No.”

“No fair!”

“It’s fair.”

“Well, how do I become an apprentice, then?”

Kankuro let out an enormous sigh and began to massage his temples. “Can we please just focus?”

I crossed my arms and waited expectantly for him to continue.

He held his hand aloft gesturing toward the elaborate display. “This obstacle course is divided into ten starting points, and at the end are ten buttons. In order to pass the course, you will have to navigate all ten of those balls through the course and then press all ten buttons simultaneously.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound  _ that _ hard… what’s the catch?”

“The catch is hurry the hell up.”

“Okay, okay, yeesh.”

Deftly I plucked the balls out of the box like plums from a pie and turned to regard the obstacle course. I said it didn’t seem that hard, but all the same, my heart pounded as I looked it over. Despite looking hastily and cheaply constructed, it was indeed very intricate. An arrangement of tubes the width of bamboo arranged in a three dimensional maze as tall as me. In parts, the tubes dead-ended into tricky puzzles that called for pulling levers or rotating entire sections to unblock the way. It would definitely take some practice and finesse.

Swallowing down my nerves, I took a deep breath and let it out. I stepped into place on the mat and the doors to the ten obstacle courses flapped open. Slowly, shakily, I began to lower the balls from my fingertips, carefully spreading them out until they levitated precariously at their starting points. Already I could see that my strings, like a cheap skein of yarn, were inconsistent, thick wads in some places, and hair thin in others. It was already a massive strain to keep them even without the cables I had been training with until now, and sweat dripped down my forehead.

Slowly, I began to navigate one of the balls through its course. One, because that was all I could focus on. Kankuro said I had to push all the buttons at once, after all, not that I had to get all of the balls through the maze at once. Steadily, I navigated through to the end. There was one down. Finally, I started on the next one, easy, easy, so as not to lose my hold on the first one… Suddenly, I felt a twinge in my hand, and the chakra thread on the second ball faltered. My face turned blue as I realized I was about to drop it and I strained to hang on, but—

BRRRRIIIIIING

I winced at the shrill ringing in my ear, an alarm shrieking out of nowhere like a banshee… and the next thing I knew, I was up to my eyeballs in a mysterious purple gelatin, surrounded by darkness, except for the sunlight that beamed down from above me, where I heard Kankuro cackling hysterically. It took a moment, but as soon as I processed what had happened, my blood was boiling so hot that even the jello might have been sizzling. I clawed my way out of the bucket of slippery stuff, leaning over the edge as I glared up at his stupid face at the edge of the trap door above me. I could barely see anything with all this purple caking up my glasses, but that face was seared onto my hit list forever.

“What the  _ hell _ , Kankuro!? What’s the big idea!?!?!?”

He settled himself down with some effort, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “ _ That _ ,” he said, “is the punishment for taking too long. In battle, there is no taking your time. You have to be able to act fluidly, or pay the price.”

“Ugh! You could have told me it was timed! What  _ is _ this stuff, anyway!? This better not stain my clothes, you bastard! Do I look like I’m made of money!?”

“Yeah, yeah, quit your whining and get back up here.”

Muttering obscenities and murder plots under my breath, I schlucked my leg out of the goop and onto the bucket. The other followed after, and I catapulted myself up to grab the edge of the trap door, whereupon I strenuously clawed my way up, winded by the effort. 

“Jeez,” said Kankuro. “How did you make chuunin with that shitty form?”

I scowled at him. “Excuse you. You try climbing with this shit on your hands. Ugh, I think some of it went up my pant leg.” I shook my leg experimentally and, sure enough, a massive glorp snaked its way out onto the floor. I grimaced in disgust.

Kankuro rolled his eyes. “Relax, there’s a shower here you can use. Anyway, it’s not like it’s poison. It’s just grape jello.”

“ _ Why _ ?”

He shrugged. “I had a bunch.”

“That only raises  _ more _ questions!”

“Well, now that you’ve tried it out… and failed miserably… I’m sure you understand. This isn’t going to be an easy hurdle.”

“You certainly didn’t  _ make  _ it easy.” I huffed. The slick jello was beginning to grow sticky as it dried on my skin.

“Well, the good news is you can avoid the jello pit if you like. You don’t have to try the course over and over.  _ But _ … You do have to complete it within the next seven days to stay on track.”

“Ugh! You’re insane. What was that, like three minutes? There’s no way I can do it that fast. I’m going to turn purple!  _ Purple _ !”

Again, he rolled his eyes. “There are other ways to practice your skills in preparation for the course. Heads up.”

With that minimal warning, he flung the heavy bag he’d brought along into my arms, nearly toppling me back into the pit. I don’t know how I caught it, but as I looked over my shoulder at the glistening purple bucket, I saw my life flashing before my eyes.

“Those materials will help you, so read them diligently.”

As I set the bag down and peered inside, my jaw dropped. “What the hell is this!”

“It’s a scroll.”

“Why is it so big!?”

“Because there’s a lot of information in it.”

“Why didn’t they just write a book!?”

“Because it was written six hundred years ago before bookbinding was common practice.  _ Now _ , if you’re done asking irrelevant questions, you can go shower that filth off and get back to training.

“Ugh! Just when I was starting to think you were a tiny bit cool!” Grumpily, I slung the massive scroll over my shoulder and lugged it down the steps as I vividly imagined pounding Kankuro’s head into the sand with it.

~~~

Finally rid of the last vestiges of my jello nightmare, I now sat upon the workshop floor brooding silently. Evidently thinking ahead, Kankuro had furnished the aforementioned shower with a white bath kimono in almost my size, and even provided a sack for my dirty clothes. However, this was of little comfort, as I remained without my own bath products. All that was in there was a bar of soap, and I had little choice but to wash my hair with it. I could practically hear the strands’ cries of agony as their beloved natural oils were ruthlessly stripped away. 

Worst of all, while I was scrubbing myself raw in vain hope of getting the purple out of my skin, Kankuro saw fit to wander off, leaving nothing but an illegible note in his wake. I had been waiting for him for  _ four hours _ .

“Hey, Sasori, what do you think of this?” I said to the puppet resting limply at the other side of the room. “You hold him and I’ll punch.” I punched the palm of my hand in demonstration, but Sasori didn’t seem particularly keen on the idea.

I sighed. “Yeah, don’t you worry, Reverse Pinocchio. Even if I don’t make jounin, when this is all over, me and you, we’re gonna string him up like a sausage--do they string up sausages?” At that moment my stomach growled. 

“Ughhhhh.”

“Huh? What are you still doing here?”

“Eh?” I looked up to see Kankuro in the doorway, a big brown bag of something positively aromatic in his arms. I stood up, pointing accusingly.

“You ditched me without a word!” I cried.

“Huh? Didn’t you see my note?”

I held it up for him. “This isn’t a note, it’s a scribble. Can you even read this!?”

“Yeah, it says ‘go home and practice, meet back tomorrow’. Did you forget your kanji?”

“I can read just fine! This might as well be hieroglyphics if you’re going to write it like this!”

He rolled his eyes—and at this point I had lost count of how many eyerolls that was—and set the bag down. “Whatever. Since you’re here, they gave me too much rice at the takeout place, so grab yourself some chopsticks out of the drawer there.”

“I’m not hungry!” I snapped. My traitor stomach howled in protest.

Kankuro raised a skeptical brow. Blushing profusely, I conceded, and pulled up a chair at the workbench as he served me a bowl. As hungry as I was, though, all I could do was stare at it.

“So… How did things go with Temari and your nephew?”

“Eh.”

“Oh…”

The silence was occupied only by the sound of his chewing.

“It’s gonna get cold,” Kankuro said after a while, through a mouthful.

“It’s just weird.”

“What?? Come on, it’s stir fry, not escargot.”

“No, I mean... three meals in one day.”

Kankuro paused his hideous eating to look at me. He didn’t look like he was waiting for something snappy to say. He was just… waiting.

I swallowed a big lump in my throat, and looked down at the food tensely. “I--I mean it’s been a long time since I’ve shared three meals in one day with anyone. You know?” I glanced back up and watched as he knocked it around in his big empty brain. He looked back down at his food and resumed eating.

“Yeah. Well, it can’t be helped. It’s annoying, but I said I would train you, so we’ll have to see a lot of each other until then.”

My heart dropped a bit. Okay, a lot. It’s impossible to say what else I was expecting; of  _ course _ he was going to be a jerk about it. Of _ course _ he had no idea what it was like to be completely alone, to have no family to turn to, no friends you could count on, no mentors who believed in you. I wanted to cry, and I wasn’t even sure why. But I held it in. “Yeah… Can’t wait to not have to look at your dumb face every day.” I managed a chuckle and choked it all back with a mouthful of food.

_ ~Earlier That Morning~ _

“Master Kankuro! Please wait!  _ Master Kankuro _ !”

Kankuro carried on down the vacant hallway and persevered in ignoring the councilwoman. She had been following him for twenty minutes at least.

“You may think that you can outrun me because I am old, but I shall have you know that I lived through three Great Wars, and I shall not cease until I am  _ deceased _ !”

Kankuro looked over his shoulder at her, but did not slow his stride. “Then drop dead already, hag!”

She paused only to seethe, and promptly resumed her pursuit.

“Master Kankuro, all I ask is that you  _ glance _ at the pictures. You cannot run from your duties forever. You must be keenly aware that at this rate, we are in danger of losing the Kazekage line to the Hidden Leaf! While your brother remains adamantly celibate, we must turn to  _ you _ for--”

“ _ Why _ are you so obsessed with this? Is there something about getting old that makes you stick your nose in other people’s personal lives? Are you that bored and desolate?” He rounded on the councilwoman, already at his wit’s end. “My sister is bringing her four year old son through miles of scorching desert so that he will know where his home is, not so that you and your cohorts could sit in the dark and gossip about them like enemies, plotting and scheming counterstrikes. Has it occurred to you that maybe my sister’s family represents the ensured prosperity of  _ both  _ our villages through unity?”

“Or perhaps this one’s destruction through assimilation,” the old councilwoman retorted grimly.

Kankuro rolled his eyes. “Then so what? Just looking at the likes of you is all I need to know that things should--  _ need _ to change.”

“You won’t cling to bachelorhood forever just to spite us, though, will you?” Her voice was confident. “Perhaps your objections are not that of the ideological dissident, but rather… the pining enamored.”

Kankuro, despite himself, was taken aback by the accusation. He shrugged his hands out, as if to declare his arms, then shake the cards out of his sleeves, and dropped them back at his sides. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am not in a position to be ‘enamored’, much less raise a family.”

“You are not required to water the tree, my lad, only to plant the seed.”

“Ugh. That’s disgusting.”

“It is a fact of life! And it is also a fact that you will either choose a suitable bride for yourself, or the council shall choose one for you!”

“Why should I?”

“You are the eldest son of Yondaime Kazekage! The council demands it! The bloodline demands it! The future of this village is at stake!”

He scoffed. “I didn’t ask to be anyone’s son. To be honest, most of the time I would rather not have been born. The last thing I want is to bring more children into this shitty world. I don’t need an heir. And you don’t need one, either, no matter what you  _ think _ is at stake. You won’t  _ get _ one. Now goodbye.”

He started back down the path, only for the councilwoman to call out again: “Master Kankuro…”

He stopped. “ _ What _ ?”

Though he did not turn to face her, the wrinkled smirk was quite evident in the tone of her voice. “Do give my best to your new pupil. What was her name again? Shirasu?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always liked the dialogue between Kankuro and the councilwoman here. Is that weird? Well, I guess if I don't like my own writing nobody will lmao. Next chapter coming soon, I think! Byeeee~


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